How to Hold a Venomous Snake

By Malia Wollan

June 30, 2017

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CreditCreditIllustration by Radio

‘‘The snake will defecate on you,’’ says Jim Harrison, who extracts venom from approximately 1,000 snakes every week for use in drug research and development. Learn to ignore the stink. Collecting venom requires pinching a snake firmly behind its skull until it clamps its fangs over a sterile collection vial; snakes will squirt excreta in an effort to escape. ‘‘When I’m done extracting the cobras, I’m covered in feces and my wife won’t come close to me,’’ Harrison says.

Unless you’re a trained venom extractor, don’t pick up a snake with your hands. Even zookeepers and herpetologists keep out of striking distance by scooping speci­mens up with a pole called a snake hook. ‘‘Everybody thinks they know what they’re doing because they saw it on YouTube,’’ Harrison says. Before you risk your life — and the snake’s — apprentice yourself to an actual human. Harrison instructs would-be extractors internationally in techniques he learned from two mentors. Approach swiftly from the rear and, barehanded (gloves make you clumsy), squeeze just behind the snake’s jawbone using your thumb and forefinger. Control the writhing body. ‘‘They’re surprisingly strong,’’ says Harrison, who presses snakes under his armpit. For king cobras, which can reach 18 feet, Harrison pins the body between his legs, while one or two assistants control the tail.

Cultivate what Harrison calls ‘‘empty mind’’; following your thoughts will dull your attentiveness. Harrison has been bitten 10 times in 41 years extracting venom, requiring hospitalization and sometimes life support. His heart has stopped four times. A fingertip had to be amputated after an encounter with a horned viper dissolved some of its bone. Venoms contain cytotoxins, cardiotoxins, hemotoxins and neurotoxins, components of which can be used in the treatment of cancer and many other medical conditions. Harrison says that holding venomous snakes has to be about something bigger than an egotistical desire to exert power over something that can kill you. ‘‘You have to know that you’re human and things can go wrong.’’

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